The Inferno, a Gruesome and Haunting Tale

The Inferno written by Dante is a haunting and gruesome tale of one man’s journey through hell. Taking place in 1300 Dante writes about a character named Dante. Throughout the book we are not sure if the character is strictly sketched out like Dante himself or just simply named Dante. Most scholars of Dante believe that he used the name Dante but suggest that no evidence has been given to support the character Dante being based on the poet Dante. The Inferno is about Dante’s travels through hell with the help of his guide, Virgil. Dante gets lost and Virgil helps guide him by taking him through hell and then to heaven where he will see Beatrice, his love. During Dante’s pilgrimage he goes through seven different circles of hell. In each of these circles he encounters sinners who are enduring punishment. The punishment of each sinner exhibits contrapasso. The theme of contrapasso is displayed throughout Dante’s travels in hell. The punishment of the sinner fits the crime. This theory of contrapasso states that the souls suffering in hell should match with what they did on earth and that the sinner is never forgotten by God. The sinner will always be in punishment for whatever crime they committed while on earth. Dante uses contrapasso to help figure out his own morals and those of humans.

Dante and Virgil first begin by going across the river Acheron to the first circle of hell. The first circle of hell is also noted as Limbo. Virgil is a resident of the first circle along with others who did not know about Christ. Dante enters the second circle of hell which is for those who are lustful. Just before entering this circle lays Minos, who is a king in Greek mythology. Before sinners can enter, Minos hears their confessions and then gives them the appropriate punishment. In circle two sinners are punished for letting their feelings and passions get carried away. The fitting punishment for lustfulness is swirling around in a horrible storm. The punishment shows how...

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...Hillary Stryker
ENGL 2201
Position Paper #3
In Dante’s Inferno, sinners in Hell are punished according to the nature of their sin. Dante uses the concept of contrapasso, so that the punishment fits the crime of the sinners. Some sinners literally become the embodiment of their sins, while others become victims in the afterlife of the crimes they committed while living. In the Inferno, sinners aren’t just damned to Hell for eternity, but punished individually for the crimes that got them there.
In Canto 3, Contrapasso is illustrated in a subtle way. The individuals in this reside in the Anti-Inferno, punished not for sinning but for being neutral. They have lived without praise and without blame, living an undecided life without a relationship with God. Their “neutral” attitude is punished by forcing them to walk in a crowd following a banner. The banner symbolizes a leader, serving as a direct punishment for their indecisive nature. “Behind that banner trailed so long a file of people…” Additionally, Dante describes this section of Hell as “the city of desolation,” often viewed as meaning a sorrowful city. This further emphasizes Dante calling the souls “lost,” implying that they had no direction and are therefore punished for their indecisiveness.
In Canto 6, the sinners that reside there are guilty of gluttony. Gluttony means over-indulgence and over consumption of food, drunk, or intoxicants to the point of waste. In...

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“The Feminine” in Dante’s The Inferno
Like many great authors throughout time, Dante Alighieri demonstrates the underlying significance of female characters in his epic, The Inferno. Due to the misconceptions men had of women during this era, women were granted much less societal acceptance and were easily labelled as seductresses. More so, Beatrice’s character suggests a much deeper relationship to Dante – one more than plain, physical love. In this sense, the women in this poem partake in two very distinct roles: either the divine love Beatrice represents, or the sinful female inhabitants of the Underworld in whom Dante sympathizes with.
Women's sins, as depicted by Dante, tend to be overwhelmingly sexual in nature as compared to men's. Hell is divided into seven circles, according to the seriousness of the sins. Thus the first, Limbo, is the least blame-worthy, and the second, where the lustful are tormented, is also relatively mild. This moral structure gives us insight into the relative gravity of different sins in Dante's mind. As we see here, carnal sins are relatively unimportant, and lust, which is so closely linked with love, is viewed with a great deal of compassion. One should note the relative abundance of female sinners here. Semiramis, Queen of Assyria, is supposed to have legalized all sorts of sexual immorality, including incest. Cleopatra committed suicide after the defeat of her lover Mark Antony. Helen's...

...Dante's use of allegory in the Inferno greatly varies from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in purpose, symbolism, characters and mentors, and in attitude toward the world. An analysis of each of these elements in both allegories will provide an interesting comparison. Dante uses allegory to relate the sinner's punishment to his sin, while Plato uses allegory to discuss ignorance and knowledge. Dante's Inferno describes the descent through Hell from the upper level of the opportunists to the most evil, the treacherous, on the lowest level. His allegorical poem describes a hierarchy of evil. Conversely, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" describes the ascent from ignorance to knowledge, as one prisoner is freed to make his way up towards the opening of the cave and experiences sunlight, the unavoidable truth. Symbolism is an essential element of both works. In Plato's allegory symbols are used to represent truth, ignorance, society and the fear of change. Truth is represented by the sun, while ignorance is represented by the cave, its limited vision and darkness within. The prisoners represent ignorant members of society who are content to believe that what they see is all that exists. Fear of change is represented by the prisoners angry reaction towards the freed, enlightened prisoner. Dante's Inferno is a detailed description of sin and its relationship to degrees of punishment. As stated in the text, "...for the face was reversed on...

...The Journey of Dante
Dante records journey through hell in the book "The Inferno." Dante's poem records is thoughts and views of the punishments to get to hell and the sins accomplished to get their. Dante breaks down the lay out all the way through hell and give one an idea of the order that the punishments fall to be placed closer to the center of hell. Dante begins during the era of the middle Ages and shows the reader throughout poem of the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church through the Renaissance era.
Dante starts out traveling up the hill that is blocked by three beasts; this is where the dark ages began. This is where “Dante's Divine Comedy' was one of the lights that led the west out of the Dark Ages and towards the light of the Renaissance.” As Dante passes through the depths of hell he begins to see sins that would be punished and tortured in medieval times to the same acts that are displayed in the era of the Renaissance, and yet are treated in other ways. It is the Renaissances era that is responsible for bringing Dante out of journey through hell.
Dante was exiled from Florence in 1302 and this is where his feelings are coming from. When Dante come out of the dark forest Dante is blocked by the three beasts. The beasts are a lion, a leopard, and she wolf. The lion is seen to poses pride, the leopards' role is that of lust and the she wolf represents what is greed or avarice. The three ferocious beasts have three of the seven...

...decision to reject the idea of an afterlife, indulging every want in life because they were un-aware of any repercussions after they died. The next circle is filled with those that were consciously violent towards God’s creations or God himself. The eighth circle contains those who broke bonds of trust between themselves and acquaintances becoming more serious as they descend. Finally are those treacherous to those that they are closest to. This hits home with Dante being versed in the Bible because Judas Iscariot was the ultimate sinner in the Bible and he is condemned as the worst in hell, being in the ninth circle with those who betrayed benefactors. Dante’s Inferno is a just conception of hell based in biblical facts and the philosophy of the age.
Justice is to be guided by truth, reason and fairness. The Inferno is the greatest human conceived embodiment of justice in hell due to its base in Biblical facts and personal experiences having little impact on the order or basis of hell. The first five circles of hell have a general theme of incontinence. The balance in man requires self-control, but because of their abuse of self-control in life, they are forced to be guided by their emotions. The heretics reside in tombs for eternity; an exact representation of what they thought would happen at death, so justly they are trapped in their idea of their afterlife. Next is the descent into a lower, more despicable hell: sins of malice....

...Dante’s Inferno and the Number Three
Durante degli Alighieri, mostly referred to as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the middle Ages. Dante as an author uses numerology a lot. Almost everything in Dante’s work has a number and some numbers appear more often than others do. He is the author of an epic poem, Dante’s Inferno, which is said to be one of the greatest works of world literature. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante made use of the number three. Almost everything that occurred in this story revolved around the number three, even if it meant three times three to make nine because nine was a multiple of three. The number three was important to Dante simply because it was considered holy – since the father (God), the son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost comprise the Trinity (AngelFire.) “It has been said that no shape is as powerful as the triangle, and as much use as Dante makes of numbers in the Comedia, no digit gets nearly the amount of attention that the number three does, except perhaps for its multiples. Threes provide a structure not only for the poetry and overall design of Dante’s work but also for its landscape, for the attributes of creatures that will populate the Inferno, and finally for the punishment of sinners that are damned eternally.” (Agoodmixture.)
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